Yes, the rumors have been true for the most part. Olympus has finally decided to let the cat out of the bag with the new OMD (or OM-D) modernly coined the EM5 (or EM-5). Pitched to me as their new professional Micro Four Thirds camera, the reps stated that the system is now complete with both consumer products and professional products. Additionally, new lenses and accessories were also announced.

We got some fondling time with the camera; and our thoughts aren’t everything you might think they would be.

Ergonomics

Before they brought out the EM-5 for me to stare at, the reps put an old OM-10 on the table. And to be honest with you, I firmly believe that that camera was one of the most unsightly the company has produced. The OM-4 was perhaps the sexiest and that’s what I really wanted.

Then when I was finally presented with the new digital OM, I was a bit taken aback. It’s alright looking, but it doesn’t look super sexy to me. Perhaps that could be because I saw it in silver. To be honest, I hate silver cameras and even expressed that if they released a white version with brown leather accents, they’d have my money. I fully expect consumers to spring for the black version of the camera.

Anyway, the camera screams retro with design accents even harkening to the recent Olympus E-5. And believe it or not, this is probably one of the largest mirrorless camera’s I’ve ever seen or held.

The top of the camera will be familiar to Pen users and also familiar to fans of everything vintage. The left features a very simple mode dial. And to be honest once again, I can’t for the life of me understand why the company would put an iAuto mode on the camera if this is targeted to professionals.

The top right is where all the business goes down. The two dials will remain unmarked and will change different settings in various camera modes. In practice, the two dials are placed exactly where your thumb and forefinger might be if you’re a Nikon or Olympus user. If you’re a Canon DSLR user, you’ll have to rebuild your muscle memory and not think about reaching for the dial on the back of the camera.

On the front dial is the shutter release as well.

It’s a fairly thin camera all in all, but to my eyes and in my hands, it is still probably one of the largest mirrorless cameras out there. But in terms of ergonomics, it seems to work out.

The back of the camera features a giant LCD touchscreen and that wonderful EVF. The EVF has the exact same resolution as the VF2 (a little over a megapixel). The right side of that giant screen features a bunch of different buttons. The directional buttons are a bit tough to get used to. I’m much more used to them being labeled, “ISO, Drive, etc.”

That screen flips up just like the one that many Sony NEX users will be familiar with.

If you’re at a concert and need to shoot over your head, here’s your configuration.

Shooting from the hip? Here you go, sort of. It can flip so that you can look directly down at it.

The camera features very few ports overall. It takes SD cards as well.

The bottom of the camera features this interesting port contact area that works with the battery grip.

The battery grip comes in two different parts. It can be used as just a grip on the front of the camera to give the user more to put their fingers around when holding the camera, or it can have the battery expansion with a vertical grip as well. The overall package, feels like one of the older cameras with an automatic advance.

The grip actually also feels very nice overall. However, this is also probably the only mirrorless camera that offers a grip option natively. That’s a bold move for Olympus to make considering that mirrorless cameras are supposed to be smaller.

In the end, it’s still nowhere as big as a Rebel with a grip.

Once the grip is on, the camera actually seemed more visually pleasing in my eyes. However, it could once again be the silver color.

Autofocusing

As seen in the video above, the focusing is super quick. The company states that it is faster than the EP3 and now the fastest in the world. I still have yet to personally see that but I can assure that with the company’s MSC lenses, the camera is indeed quite fast. In fact, it is also even quite fast with the older lenses.

Image Quality

I wasn’t able to stick a card in the camera, so I can’t judge yet. However, they stated the the images are usable up to 12,800. As a Micro Four Thirds user, I’m going to pray that they’re right.

All That Other Stuff

The camera is splashproof and dustproof.

New weatherproof four thirds lens adapter.

New FL-600 flash that also features a front LED light for video. Which will compliment the new camera well since the video codec is now in MOV instead of that dreaded AVCHD codec they used previously.

Here’s the grip separated into its two parts.

Two new lenses are coming: a 75mm f1.8 and 60mm f2.8 Macro lens. The reps told me that the f2.8 will stay at a constant aperture throughout the focusing range and not change the way some of Nikon’s lenses do.

And the top.

And here is the camera in all black.

Am I excited for this one. Yes, but I have to admit that I’m not as sold on it as I was about the EP3 during that briefing. I’m not sure what it is, but something about the back button placement throws me off a bit and that top head of the camera is huge to accommodate the viewfinder.

It could very well be that I’m so disgusted by the silver color. Indeed, that black up top looks tempting. But I’ll need to put the camera through its paces. My experience could very well change during a street photography session.

And I assure you all that I’ll be honest about it and not try to force you guys to click our affiliate links by masking ourselves as a salesmen (as some of our competitors do.)

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